Tag Archives: Cukor

Holiday
Directed by George Cukor
Written by Donald Ogden Stewart and Sidney Buchman from the play by Philip Barry
1938/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
Repeat viewing

[box]Linda Seton: For the love of Pete… it’s the witch and Dopey![/box]

The other Grant/Hepburn pairing for 1938 is another comedy, but in a more sophisticated vein.

Johnny Case (Cary Grant) is a fun-loving sort who has worked all his life.  His plan is to save enough money to take a long holiday from working to figure who he is and what he wants from life.  While on a skiing trip, he meets beautiful Julia Seton and they fall in love. When they return to New York, he discovers that Julia comes from one of the wealthiest families in the city.  Her father places a large stock in breeding, money, and decorum. Julia can wrap dad around her little finger but her sister Linda (Katharine Hepburn) is miserable in the stuffy atmosphere of their mansion and her brother Ned (Lew Ayres) has taken to drink as a way out.

Mr. Seton finally gives his approval to an alliance with the working class Case when he finds that he has been doing well at a financial firm.  Seton plans to announce the engagement at a huge fancy New Years Eve party.  At the same time, Linda is hosting a party for one in the “playroom” of the mansion.  Gradually, Johnny’s old friends Professor Nick Potter (Edward Everett Horton) and his wife Susan (Jean Dixon) join her, along with her brother Ned.  Things come to a head when Case discovers his deal at the firm has made a killing on the stock market and he can at last afford to take his holiday.

This is a really entertaining film.  All the acting is quite wonderful.  Both Grant and Horton excel in nuanced, serious parts.  The standout for me, however, is Ayres.  I always lament that we don’t see enough of him in major Hollywood movies.   The plot moves much too fast with respect to the shifting relationships but who expected reality in the movies? The dialogue sparkles.  Recommended.

Holiday was nominated for an Oscar for Best Art Direction.  That mansion is quite something.

Clip

Romeo and Juliet
Directed by George Cukor
Adapted by Talbot Jennings from the play by William Shakespeare
1936/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing

[box] Juliet: Romeo. Romeo. Wherefore art thou Romeo?[/box]

This lavish production of the Shakespearian tragedy has a lot going for it but is marred by some inappropriate casting.  With Leslie Howard as Romeo, Norma Shearer as Juliet, C. Aubrey Smith as Capulet, Basil Rathbone as Tybalt, John Barrymore as Mercutio, Reginald Denny as Benvolio, Edna May Oliver as Juliet’s Nurse, and Andy Devine as Peter.

This film was MGM’s answer to Warner Bros. production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream the previous year.  It has the same sumptuous art direction with a look a little like a medieval tapestry.  The music is also wonderful and many of the performances, particularly by the British cast members, are quite good.

The problem lies with the age of the cast.  Leslie Howard was 43 when this was made and Norma Shearer was 34, far too old to be the adolescents of the story.  Howard takes this in stride, playing Romeo as a grown man.  However, I think Shearer suffers greatly. Apparently someone thought she could get away with playing a young girl.  Her performance is thus very mannered and simpering in the first part of the film.  After Juliet’s marriage to Romeo, Shearer suddenly begins playing her as a mature woman. Unfortunately, this means she pulls out all the stops overacting to an almost embarrassing extent.  John Barrymore, who was 57 and nearing the end of his creative life, doesn’t do himself any favors either.

On the night of the Los Angeles premiere, Shearer’s husband, MGM production head Irving Thalberg, died at age 37.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D6BxQwYQ4I

Trailer